


Sunlight

by PTchan



Series: Ghoul!Hide Week 2016 [5]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe, And Kaneki's Mom is mentioned, Angst, But still..., Ghoul!HideWeek2016, Hide is part of V, M/M, ghoul!Hide, human!Kaneki, i think I'm just spamming now, it makes no sense, not-tragedy, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 15:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5670319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PTchan/pseuds/PTchan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slowly, he turned back around, taking a second before he resumed his journey to the faculty, the shy boy’s words replaying in his head like some sort of replay.</p><p><em>Sunlight, he says... </em>he hummed, a smile slowly growing on his face without him knowing, <em>Wonder where he got that from.</em></p><p>
  <strong>Day 6 - Mask/Loneliness</strong>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> And thus my fics make less and less sense... =W=  
> 

Screams, cries, begs for mercy, none of these reaches his ears.

Blood, meat, mangled bodies and kagune fluid, this was his every day.

He doesn’t even bother to shake the blood off his Kagune as he retracts it anymore, letting the sickening stench of ghoul flow down his skin – a reminder that he is soiled and rotten to the core.

“Well done as always, Fox” the voice calls out to him, movements barely audible in the darkness of the night.

He shifts, running a bloody hand through his hair before facing the man in black, his gaze hidden behind his mask, his posture tensed at attention. He doesn’t speak.

“Your reward is as always. We will be in touch” the man states, and without another word he was gone.

-

-

Every ghoul is born with a mask on his face. The first thing they ever learn is how to hide, to conceal their true natures, to try and become something they’re not, to form an image that can only ever be half of who they are.

Unable to fully express themselves in fear of being caught, exiled, hunted down and killed. The knowledge that one wrong move can mean the end, can cost them their lives literally as well as figuratively.

“Thanks for the notes, Nagachika! You saved my life!!” one man exclaims, rushing over to him with a notebook outstretched.

He takes it and grins. “No prob, dude. But seriously though, ya gotta work harder cause even my supreme note-taking skills can only go so far”

“Oooh! What’s this? Is Nagachika seriously acting _mature?_ That’s a first!” another calls out with a laugh, and he pouts in his general direction.

“Should senpai seriously be saying that? Considering how he asked me to _cover for him that one time when he—“_

“O-O-OOI! D-Don’t go saying stuff like that out in the open idiot!!” the guy squeaks, clamping a hand to his mouth.

“That’s what you get picking on Nagachika, of all people, hahaha!” the guy’s friends laugh, and Hide joins in just for the sake of it, ignoring the roiling in his gut.

These people didn’t know anything, talking and laughing and touching him without a care in the world. Not a clue about just what had been in his mouth not even a few hours earlier, about just how easily that guy could’ve lost his whole arm with that innocent action, how easily this whole classroom can become a sea of blood and corpses.

Some say that a ghoul’s ‘mask’ – the physical representation, that is— is a ghoul’s true self. Donning it gives as much freedom as they are ever allowed to have in this world.

For Nagachika Hideyoshi, though, he couldn’t say he actually believes that to be true.

Sometimes, when he’s all alone, he would laugh at himself and his situation.

Where, exactly, did the mask end and the person begin?

With his Mask, he is an efficient, merciless, mindless puppet, doing V’s dirty work without complaint since the day he found himself in their corrupted clutches when he was but a child, and finding that he doesn’t mind it one bit.

Without it, he is Hide – a normal if-eccentric International Studies major who never fails to flash a smile, who wears too bright clothes and takes up too much work and talks too much. The very person no one would ever suspect to be the mass-murdering monster he was.

It’s in moments of silence where he would wonder just who he is. Whether he’s one or the other, something in between or no one at all. If others look at him and see anything other than the vision he projects, has been projecting since the moment he could talk. He doesn’t even know himself.

An identity crisis if there ever was one, he snorts.

A knock on the door jolted him out of his thoughts, and he stared as it slowly opened, a small sliver of light filling the dark space he was in. “N-Nagachika-san…?” a meek voice calls out just as a head of black hair peeked through the opening. “U-Uhm… Ondo-sensei is looking for you”

Hide blinked. Once, twice, and then raised a brow. “Kaneki, right?” he asked first, recognizing the ravenette as the shy boy always glued to a book from his Asian Literature class. Hide stood up, and he scrambled backwards. “How did you know I was here?” he couldn’t help but ask, shutting the door of the _Storage closet_ behind him.

Kaneki flushed, a hand rising up to cup his chin, not quite meeting Hide’s eyes as he spoke. “U-Uhm… I saw you go in earlier and… thought it was a place to start looking…” he explained.

 _He’s lying._ Hide quickly realized and a laugh burst out of his throat, surprising even himself with how sardonic it sounded that it was no surprise Kaneki flinched. He smiled, trying to ease the sudden tension, before stretching his arms above his head. “Right! Thanks for finding me man, sensei can be scary when he’s pissed” he stated, his tone light, before turning towards the general direction of his department’s faculty.

He didn’t look back as he felt the other’s gaze following him. Soon enough he could hear footsteps going the opposite direction, and he used that moment to take a peek.

Kaneki walked with his head down and his shoulders hunched, tense and cautious, perhaps a bit ashamed too, and Hide’s brows furrowed. He wondered why he never really noticed him before.

“U-Uhm!” he blinked, just noticing that, once again, the guy was looking at him rather awkwardly. “N-Nagachika-san… you… I know you work really hard… b-but please take it easy sometimes too” he states out of the blue.

Hide didn’t quite know what to say to that, other than “Huh?”

Kaneki continued, his tone soft, unsure, his words almost thoughtless, but he spoke as if he _knew_ him somehow and Hide found himself hanging on to each one. “You… you’re very bright, and well-liked by everyone… but I notice that you don’t seem all that comfortable around people and… well… I just wanted to say that it’s okay to just speak your mind sometimes too o-or take a break when you have to and…. Although, I guess I’m not one to talk but… y-you’re like sunshine… and it… it sometimes makes me sad to see you looking troubled so… I-I’m mean… I’m sorry I should…. Go now… yeah”

And just like that he was gone, leaving Hide gaping after him in that deserted hallway.

_What…_

_Was that about…?_

Slowly, he turned back around, taking a second before he resumed his journey to the faculty, the shy boy’s words replaying in his head like some sort of replay.

 _Sunlight, he says..._ he hummed, a smile slowly growing on his face without him knowing, _Wonder where he got that from._

_Kaneki Ken, huh... Interesting guy_

**_-_ **

**_-_ **

**_-_ **

_It’s cold, freezing. It hurts. It hurts it hurts it hurts._

_It’s dark. So so dark. And it hurts._

_It hurts._

_Is he a kind person?_

I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.

I don’t need it. I don’t need it so please. Please.

_Is this kindness?_

_Pain, burning. Blood on his face, his bones creaking._

_It hurts it hurts it hurts._

_And suddenly it was gone._

_Sunlight. Bright. Yellow, beautiful._

**_“I… did I do something wrong?”_ ** _he couldn’t help but ask._

_The pain was gone. And his mother wasn’t moving. “ **Mother… Mother was… did I…”**_

_A boy turned to him, a mask that looked like a fox met his eyes, and then it was bright hair and bright eyes and a bright, golden light shining behind him like a ray of the sun._

_He cried, he cried and cried and cried. **“Am I not a kind person…?”** he asked, curling up into a ball._

_The pain was gone. His mother wasn’t moving. He didn’t know anything._

**_“You didn’t… do anything wrong”_ ** _the boy suddenly said, making him freeze, and a hand suddenly gripped his shoulder. Warm and kind and without any pain. **“I-I wouldn’t know what a ‘kind’ person is… b-but if you’re like that because of her, then I don’t think she’s one”**_

_He gasped, his tears falling, watching as the sunlight suddenly turned away. **“W-Wait!!”** he tried to reach out, but couldn’t._

**_“I-I’m sorry!”_ ** _those words reached his ears, just as his world darkened yet again._

_But the pain… the pain was gone._

**Author's Note:**

> OK!!  
> Short explenation!!  
> Lets just say Ken's mom saw something she shouldn't related to V and Hide was sent to kill her! And she was just releasing her trauma on poor ken TTwTT
> 
> I swear just one more and I'll be out of your hair!!
> 
> (And I am so sorry for totally exploiting the Ghoul!Hide week extension when I even missed the actual week... =w=;;)


End file.
